Jonathan Butler: Mac and OS X

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:11:41 GMT

âo[ogonek]One-of-a-kind gift ideasâo[caron] you can create on your Mac. Offering readers a gift suggestion âo[ogonek]Iâo[dot accent]m certain your loved one isnâo[dot accent]t going to receive from somebody else,âo[caron] Bob LeVitus (Houston Chronicle) suggests âo[ogonek]creating a book or calendarâo[caron] from the images in your iPhoto library. And, LeVitus points out, âo[ogonek]it couldnâo[dot accent]t be easier to create one in iPhoto: Just select the photos, drag them where you want them on the pages and then add some text. When youâo[dot accent]re done, you order it with a click of a button.âo[caron] Thinking about placing an order? You have just a few days left if you want your parties to receive their gifts by December 25. [Apple Hot News]

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 00:21:39 GMT

Apple to add Trusted Computing to the new kernel?. Cory Doctorow: People working with early versions of the forthcoming Intel-based MacOS X operating system have discovered that Apple's new kernel makes use of Intel's Trusted Computing hardware. If this "feature" appears in a commercial, shipping version of Apple's OS, they'll lose me as a customer -- I've used Apple computers since 1979 and have a Mac tattooed on my right bicep, but this is a deal-breaker.

I travel in the kinds of circles where many people use GNU/Linux on their computers -- and not only use it, but actually call it GNU/Linux instead of just "Linux," in the fashion called for by Richard Stallman. Some of these people give me grief over the fact that I use Mac OS X instead of GNU/Linux on my Powerbook, because the MacOS is proprietary.

I've been an Apple user since 1979. I've owned dozens -- probably more than a hundred -- Macintoshes. When I worked in the private sector, I used to write purchase orders for about a quarter-million dollars' worth of Apple hardware every year. I've stuck with the machines over the years because the fit-and-finish of the OS and the generally kick-ass hardware made them the best choice for me. I've converted innumerable people to the Mac (most recently I got my grandmother's octogenarian boyfriend to pick up a Mac Mini, which he loves). Hell, I even bought half a dozen Newtons over the years.

When my free software companions give me grief over this, I tell them that I'm using an OS built on a free flavor of Unix, and that most of the apps I use are likewise free -- such as Firefox, my terminal app, etc.

Here's the important part though: when I use apps that aren't free, like Apple's Mail.app, BBEdit, NetNewsWire, etc, I do so comfortable in the fact that they save their data-files in free formats, open file-formats that can be read by free or proprietary applications. That means that I always retain the power to switch apps when I need to. That means that if the vendor changes their policy in a way that is incongruent with my needs, or if they go out of business, or if they treat me badly, I can always go across the street to another vendor, or to a free software project, and switch. This acts as a check against abusive behavior on the vendors' part and it is, I believe, partly responsible for the quality and pricing of their offerings.

The Trusted Computing people say that they intend on Trusted Computing being used to stop the unauthorized distribution of music, but none of them has ever refuted the Darknet paper, where several of Trusted Computing's inventors explain that Trusted Computing isn't fit to this purpose.

The point of Trusted Computing is to make it hard -- impossible, if you believe the snake-oil salesmen from the Trusted Computing world -- to open a document in a player other than the one that wrote it in the first place, unless the application vendor authorizes it. It's like a blender that will only chop the food that Cuisinart says you're allowed to chop. It's like a car that will only take the brand of gas that Ford will let you fill it with. It's like a web-site that you can only load in the browser that the author intended it to be seen in.

What this means is that "open formats" is no longer meaningful. An application can write documents in "open formats" but use Trusted Computing to prevent competing applications from reading them. Apple may never implement this in their own apps (though I'll be shocked silly if it isn't used in iTunes and the DVD player), but Trusted Computing in the kernel is like a rifle on the mantelpiece: if it's present in act one, it'll go off by act three.

It means that the price of being a Mac user will be eternal vigilance: you'll need to know that your apps not only write to exportable formats, but that they also allow those exported files to be read by competing apps. That they eschew those measures that would lock you in and prevent you from giving your business to someone else. I'm pretty sure that apps like BBEdit and NetNewsWire won't lock me out, as their authors are personally known to me to be wonderful, generous, honorable people. But personally familiarizing yourself with the authors of all the software you use doesn't scale.

So that means that if Apple carries on down this path, I'm going to exercise my market power and switch away, and, for the first time since 1979, I won't use an Apple product as my main computer. I may even have my tattoo removed.

My data is my life, and I won't keep it in a strongbox that someone else has the keys for.

* We've discovered that the Rosetta kernel uses TCPA/TPM DRM. Some parts of the GUI like ATSServer are still not native to x86 - meaning that Rosetta is required by the GUI, which in turn requires TPM. See the forum topic here.
* After much careful analysis of the files from the new Intel-based Macs, it would appear that SSE3 enabled processors are required to run the GUI. We are still testing this theory, though - nothing has been proven conclusively. Check out this forum thread for evidence and discussion.
* Check out some of our members' earliest work - using Darwin and the "mactel" leak.

Link (via /.)

[Boing Boing]

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 18:58:52 GMT

Report: Some Motorola phones already work with iTunes. Xeni Jardin: Any BoingBoing readers out there able to duplicate this? If so, which phones worked for you? Snip from a Macworld.uk item:

It has emerged that certain models of Motorola mobile phones are already syncing with iTunes âo[base "] enabling those phones to be loaded with iTunes tracks. When Apple posted the iTunes 4.9 update earlier this week the company focused on its Podcasting facilities, however, the update also included an instruction set entitled: iPod Phone Prefs.
Now it appears that certain Motorola phones are recognised by iTunes. An AppleInsider source revealed that when he connected his Motorola phone to his PowerBook iTunes 4.9 automatically launched and prompted him to transfer tracks to the phone.

Link (via unwired, thanks Hal Bringman) [Boing Boing]

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:33:24 GMT

Xserve RAID Storage System Updated. Apple updated its Xserve RAID storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system to deliver a massive 5.6 terabytes of storage capacity at the industry[base ']s most aggressive price for storage of just over $2 per GB. Additionally, Apple expanded support for heterogeneous environments with certification from Cisco and SUSE Linux and optimized the system to work with its Xsan Storage Area Network file system. [Oct 19] [Apple Hot News]

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:50:59 GMT

How to configure 6to4 in MacOS X. Remember, 6to4 does not work if you are behind a NAT. [Hack the Planet]

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:48:16 GMT

Virus victims continue to migrate to Mac OS X. Last week Kevin Maney wrote an article for USA Today about "a virus giving a lobotomy to my Windows XP home computer."... [MacMinute]

Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:13:41 GMT

Backing up Mail.app in OS X. Tonight, I was messing around with our Cyrus IMAP server here at InfoWorld and needed to run a test using my mail account. I didn't want to blow away my mail in the process, so I decided to backup my local cached copies of my IMAP mail contained in Mail.app. I thought I had figured out what directories to back up, but I don't play around with mail backups, so I checked around the web for confirmation. This page at the University of Hawaii confirmed what I thought and gave me the courage to backup my mail with confidence. [Chad Dickerson]

Wed, 21 Jul 2004 21:31:28 GMT

Apple Offering Battery Advice [MacSlash]

Fri, 21 May 2004 16:25:03 GMT

.Mac Enhancements. With enhancements to both HomePage and iCards, .Mac offers even more for subscribers. HomePage gains three movie templates, six photo album templates, a template for publishing an online journal and a template for download pages. iCards offers seamless integration with the .Mac Address Book and more than 200 new cards. [May 20] [Apple Hot News]

Thu, 11 Mar 2004 23:50:31 GMT

iStopMotion gets German localization, new features. Boinx Software's stop motion animation tool, iStopMotion, has been updated to version 1.3, adding German localization and a preference setting for turning the video upside down in order to support animation of small objects... [MacMinute]

Thu, 11 Mar 2004 13:44:30 GMT

Kiss My Apple French group seeks royalties on iPod. The Society of Music Creators, Composers and Publishers, or Sacem, a French association representing recorded music rights holders, is threatening to take Apple to court in a dispute over unpaid music royalties... [MacMinute]

Mon, 08 Mar 2004 21:39:01 GMT

Linux Magazine article praises Mac OS X. Linux Magazine praises Mac OS X in a new article... [MacMinute]

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 16:55:37 GMT

CodeTek ships VirtualDesktop 3.0. CodeTek Studios is now shipping version 3.0 of VirtualDesktop, software that lets Mac OS X users work on multiple projects on separateÂ[~]as the name impliesÂ[~]"virtual desktops."... [MacMinute.com: Up-to-the-minute Mac news -- around the clock, around the world.]

Sun, 04 Jan 2004 14:56:21 GMT

Lego ROBOLAB for OS X in June '04 [MacSlash]

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 00:41:38 GMT

Make a Movie in 24 Hours. Could you write, cast, shoot, score and edit an entire movie in a day? The 24 teams that competed in New York City Midnight Moviemaking Madness think they can. By Xeni Jardin and Choire Sicha from Wired magazine. [Wired News]

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 22:01:38 GMT

Cool iTunes Accessory, catalogs your songs many ways iTunes Catalog gains numerous options. KavaSoft has released iTunes Catalog 1.5, the latest version of its software that creates Web catalogs of your iTunes music library... [MacMinute.com: Up-to-the-minute Mac news -- around the clock, around the world.]

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 19:21:02 GMT

Interview with Steve Jobs Jobs interviewed by Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone has published an interesting interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in which he shares his views on the music industry and Apple's position in it... [MacMinute.com: Up-to-the-minute Mac news -- around the clock, around the world.]

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 17:44:39 GMT

Been there, Done That - Apple Microsoft aims for a seamless digital world. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Microsoft Corp.'s "seamless computing" vision is about making software and devices work in sync with consumers' lives, John Oâo[dot accent]Rourke, consumer strategy director at Microsoft, said Friday. [InfoWorld: Top News]

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 17:41:07 GMT

Be your own Radio Station... Rogue Amoeba releases Nicecast 1.0. Rogue Amoeba Software has released the final version of Nicecast 1.0, its software that allows you to easily broadcast music from Mac OS X... [MacMinute.com: Up-to-the-minute Mac news -- around the clock, around the world.]

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 04:08:50 GMT

Large NY Times story on iPod The Guts of a New Machine [New York Times: Technology]

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 04:05:50 GMT

3rd fastest using G5s and Infiniband Virginia Tech Supercomputer Is World[base ']s Third Fastest. Confirming that the Virginia Tech supercomputer built from 1,100 Power Mac G5 computers ranks as the third fastest supercomputer in the world, the List of Top 500 Supercomputers web site writes, [base "]The third system ever to exceed the 10 TFflop/s mark is Virgina Tech[base ']s X Cluster Institute measured at 10.28 TFlop/s. This cluster is built with the Apple G5 as building blocks.[per thou] [Nov 19] [Apple Hot News]

Wed, 29 Oct 2003 01:59:17 GMT

OS X Conference: Pixar talks OS X migration (MacCentral). MacCentral - Despite the company's deep connections to Apple, Pixar Animation Studios only completed moving its computer infrastructure to Mac OS X eight months ago. System administrators Bethany Jan Hanson and Gabriel Benveniste said that they deliberately waited until the vast majority of applications they use daily were OS X native. But once that happened, they and the rest of the administrators at Pixar tapped OS X's core Unix capabilities to develop a migration and maintenance scheme that they say has a lower cost of ownership than Mac OS 9. [Yahoo! News - Technology]

Wed, 29 Oct 2003 01:53:42 GMT

X11 for Panther now available. Apple has released the final 1.0 version of X11, its implementation of the X Window System for running X11-based applications in Mac OS X... [MacMinute.com: Up-to-the-minute Mac news -- around the clock, around the world.]

Wed, 29 Oct 2003 01:49:11 GMT

Nicecast turns your Mac into Internet radio station. Rogue Amoeba today announced the release of Nicecast, new software that allows you to easily broadcast music from Mac OS X... [MacMinute.com: Up-to-the-minute Mac news -- around the clock, around the world.]

Tue, 28 Oct 2003 03:01:39 GMT

Replacing the Sky. [base "]It[base ']s more challenging to add something no one knows you added,[per thou] says compositor Abra Grupp. [base "]Like the opening sequence of [OE]Open Range[base '] [~] we replaced all the skies.[per thou] [Oct 24] [Apple Hot News]